Summerfest Opens with a Sizzle in Saline Friday, Fun Continues Saturday

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Your Generation, a popular cover band, had the crowd dancing in the parking lot in downtown Saline Friday night.

Saline Summerfest opened with some sizzle Friday.

After a one-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the annual summer festival was the first major Saline event to return to the community calendar. And judging by the crowds Friday night in downtown Saline, people were happy to celebrate summer together again.

The crowd gathers at the Summerfest stage to watch Your Generation.

The activities began early in the day with a Stuff the Bus campaign organized by Paul Hynek, Steadfast Chiropractic, and Saline Area Schools. The bus made trips through town, stopping at locations to pick up donations. More than 400 backpacks were donated.

"It was an amazing success," Hynek said.

A dancer from Dance Alliance entertains.

As always, local dance groups opened the entertainment. Dance Explosion, Dance Steps Studio, the Saline Twirlettes, Dance Alliance and Earth Angels (from Plymouth) provided the entertainment.

A lot of the sizzle took place on the grill of Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger, which had a constant line of hungry customers on South Ann Arbor Street.

Al Leslie, known to many as coach of the track team or football team, and a retired teacher from Saline Area Schools, did emergency duty filling in for his son, Hunter, at Hunny's Pizza.

Scott Fosdick helped himself to a hot dog from the Kiwanis food truck.

Summerfest runs on volunteers. And volunteers who move away often come back to help and see friends at events like Summerfest.  It was great to see Art and Mala Trapp, who posed for this picture with their nephew.

Saline Police were on duty. So too were police cadets like Tyler Somers, Scott Feifel, Ethan Boulter, Cameron Lindemulder and Lewis Gerten.

Summerfest is made possible by all kinds of volunteers, some, like Jim Hill, who've been volunteering in the beer tent since the event was known as Picnic in the Park.

One of the new attractions this year was Movie in the Park at Henne Field, provided by Saline Recreation. Sunshine Lambert described the event - the first Movie in the Park since 2019. It was also the first time Parks and Recreation held the event at Henne Field.

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As you can see in the video above and pictures below, it wasn't all about the movie. Below, kids play 9 Square in the Air.

In the picture below, a family plays 1-on-1-on-1-on-1 volleyball.

In the frisbee challenge below, this boy tried to knock a bottle off a pole.

And, in case you were wondering, these are the dog days of summer.

The folks from Emagine Theater provided the popcorn, and Saline Rec provided lots of sparkly, neon gizmos.

And it wouldn't be a community event without the Saline Area Fire Department stopping by to let the kids climb aboard a fire truck.

As night fell, the screen brightened and the audience settled in to watch The Incredibles 2.

Meanwhile, the party was just getting started downtown.

Here's Saturday's schedule at Summerfest:

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